Her body was burning from within. A tremendous heat radiated outward from her heart, coursing through every limb and channeling explosive power to her extremities.
Peerless Shadow was the name of a combat technique created long ago by a single thief.
It was the desperate measure devised by a frail thief whose attack power was limited to serving a support role against phantoms.
Rigorous physical conditioning. The combination of mental focus and a specialized breathing method granted a speed that seemed to burn one's very life away to the thief who mastered it.
Speed was power. Its essence wasn't merely increased evasion.
The punches delivered through acceleration that left even sound behind, paired with exceptional balance, could easily shatter phantoms and monsters alike.
The sight of it was like a black storm.
In the spacious training grounds, all that echoed nonstop was the roaring sound of slender limbs tearing through the air and the clang of hard material striking metal.
One was the Peerless Shadow. A special-order costume that hindered no movement, paired with the heavy metal boots that had become her symbol.
Opposing her was a single puppet.
A human-sized black metal puppet with only its joints built to move.
Liliz closed in without uttering a sound, wreathed in a blazing heat.
She hooked its leg and tripped it, then stomped down. She struck it with her palm, lifting it off the ground before slamming it into the floor. Sometimes she seized its arm and hurled it, sometimes she kicked upward between its legs. Smoke rose from the floor due to the friction, but Liliz's movements didn't stop.
The relentless, flowing barrage would have killed any living creature long ago if it had been breathing.
The metal puppet was, quite literally, just a puppet. It couldn't be operated like a golem, nor did it possess the autonomous thinking of an android—it was simply a lump of metal.
It wasn't a hollow shell; it was packed solid with metal throughout, and its exterior was coated in a special alloy, making it extremely heavy and guaranteed to be sturdy.
Thanks to its coating, it possessed extraordinary resistance to both magic and physical attacks. It was an imitation of what had once been called an "Akasha" golem.
Akasha had been fitted with highly advanced mechanisms to maneuver its massive body freely. The puppet Liliz was fighting was, in that sense, a far inferior degraded product, but at the very least, when it came to sheer sturdiness, it was on par with Akasha.
Killing intent imbued every strike. The puppet was battered by her fists, her kicks, again and again against the floor, against the walls.
Some distance away from the battlefield, Citry was observing her sister's frenzy with a notebook in hand.
Driven out of the previous Peerless Shadow's workshop by all the commotion, they'd been holed up in the clan's underground training grounds for hours.
Even the other clan members who had been using the training grounds had grown fed up with the chaos and left.
"Sis, it's no use! Just give it up, okay? I adjusted its durability specifically to withstand your attacks!"
"Shut it, Cit! I'm training, so shut up and get the next one ready!"
"Geez! It's not like I have nothing to do either!"
She puffed out her cheeks, but Liliz didn't so much as glance at Citry.
Akasha's design philosophy was simple.
Surpass the Mourning Specter. That was the only goal.
Based on the vast data Citry possessed, leveraging the full technological capability, financial resources, and connections of the Arcane Society known as the Tower of Akasha, the enormous golem that emerged after years of research was something too powerful to be called merely a "golem."
Each member of the Mourning Specter possessed specialized strengths.
It had started as pure curiosity. Before she knew it, Citry had become deeply immersed in the research.
Matching the Mourning Specter, whose members each excelled in one area, was no trivial feat.
Those had been wonderful days. Recalling the period of trial and error as she pushed the research forward, Citry could still remember the exhilaration she'd felt back then.
With the help of numerous talented senior colleagues and the great former Sage, she had piled thought upon thought—and the conclusion she arrived at was simple.
Counter each strength, one by one, with meticulous care. It was the same approach a hunter takes when challenging a high-difficulty Treasure Hall.
Born from an obsession that bordered on madness, the completed "Akasha" was a magnificent golem that surpassed every golem previously in existence.
Because of its purpose, Akasha was equipped with performance that made it the natural enemy of the Mourning Specter.
A shield capable of withstanding Luke's slashes. Sustained combat ability on par with Anthem, who possessed extraordinary physical strength and stamina, combined with high-level information processing and judgment achieved through human operation.
The area they had invested the most effort in was the development of the body.
To make Akasha a true "enemy" of the Mourning Specter, metal capable of withstanding Lucia's magic—which boasted an attack range that was nearly impossible to dodge—and Liliz's strikes, which were so fast that even raising a shield in time was difficult, was an absolute necessity.
There was no grudge involved, but Citry had devoted the most money and time to that aspect. She had refused to compromise even when receiving criticism from her seniors, her master, and even those above them.
Her sister Liliz's talent was genuine. She had mastered the Peerless Shadow—a technique she'd been told would take years to learn—and was now even permitted to bear that title.
Her strikes were devoid of hesitation or fear, and because of that, they demonstrated power beyond what her physical capabilities alone would suggest.
Liliz was human. Her fists were not made for punching through a block of metal.
During training, both of her clenched fists were covered in blood. Several bones were probably broken.
Yet every time the wind blew, blood would drip and stain the floor, and there was no sign of her momentum or her stride weakening. She must have been in pain, but her blazing eyes showed no trace of wavering.
As a warrior, as a hunter, it was clear her sister was first-rate.
Her prime age-wise was still ahead of her. In fact, Liliz's athletic performance had improved dramatically compared to when the body's metal was first developed.
But—for that sole reason alone, to have the body that took years to develop broken through was simply unacceptable.
Naturally, she had accounted for growth. Citry had no intention of ceding this advantage to her sister anytime soon.
The connection with the Tower of Akasha, which had been useful in so many ways, was gone now too.
"Annoying! So mean! Damn it! Can't punch through the armor! And there wasn't even a secret ultimate technique!"
"...What kind of powerful technique would a 'Thief' even have?"
The role of a "Thief" was not combat. The very fact of trying to defeat this golem alone, with bare hands, was fundamentally misguided to begin with.
Frowning with a troubled expression, Citry continued taking notes in quick strokes.
An alchemist's strength lay in accumulation. Liliz's special training was a precious opportunity for Citry to gather data as well.
The Mourning Specter had sharpened each other through friendly rivalry, growing their party together. Considering what would happen if Akasha's armor was breached, Citry needed to come up with the next plan, so she couldn't afford to stay relaxed forever.
Just then, Liliz's movements—which had shown no sign of slowing—suddenly stopped.
The puppet that had been tossed around collapsed to the floor as if remembering it could. Breathing roughly, Liliz turned toward Citry.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her entire face flushed red as if on fire, and she was sweating, but her steps were still steady.
"Cit, it broke. Next one!"
"............"
She heaved a deep sigh and walked toward the discarded puppet.
The puppet had no significant damage. Its prized alloy was stained with Liliz's blood, but it had barely been scratched.
Liliz grabbed the puppet's right arm and forcibly forced it upright. Before Citry's eyes, the right arm's joint—the elbow section—was exposed.
Joints, by their very nature, had to be weaker than the surrounding structure to allow movement. The special alloy coating was insufficient there.
On the real Akasha, this had been addressed by layering multiple layers of protective armor that didn't impede movement, but they simply hadn't had the bandwidth to go that far for a mere toy.
Sure enough, the exposed joint section bore a large crack from the impacts it couldn't withstand.
Liliz clicked her tongue and stomped her foot.
"Can't you make it a little better?"
"Don't complain! Just preparing the same metal was incredibly difficult!"
Akasha's golem research had been completed long ago. Most of the materials were gone, and the only reason they'd been able to pour that much effort into a single golem was because of the Tower of Akasha's resources. Reproducing it would require equivalent—or at least comparable—resources and manpower.
Even Citry's assets weren't unlimited.
No matter how much it was for her sister, she couldn't pour large sums of money into training that might not even be useful.
She pulled a metal-repair potion from her potion bag and carefully poured it into the crack.
A small wisp of smoke rose, and the crack that had been there moments before vanished, though slightly warped. The strength wasn't back to what it had been, but there was nothing more she could do.
Besides, the joint breaking didn't really matter for training since it was just a puppet…
Unaware of Citry's inner thoughts, Liliz shouted.
"This is no good for training! Hey, bring that huge annoying one! Right now!"
"Don't just say whatever you want! You're the one who lost it! I was supposed to get it as a keepsake! Where did you put it!?"
Tears welled up in Citry's eyes as she protested.
It had been her masterpiece. Proof of how they had all sharpened each other. Beyond its high performance, it held memories.
She'd originally planned to take it when she left the Tower of Akasha, but now it was missing.
By the time Citry had returned to the Imperial Capital, it was completely gone with no trace left, and there had been nothing she could do.
From what she'd heard, after a battle in the wasteland, Liliz had just left it behind and come back. She'd hurried to look for it, but it was nowhere to be found.
Anything left outside the city was implicitly the property of whoever found it. Even if bringing home the enormous "Akasha" was difficult, the least she could have done was take precautions against theft—that was the honest truth.
At Citry's words, Liliz's passion came to an abrupt halt.
"...Anyway, enough talk—how much would it cost to make another one? I'll chip in a little, you know?"
The extremity of her emotional swings was this sister's defining trait. She was selfish and quick to anger, but Liliz was no fool.
She irritably brushed the sweat-soaked bangs from her face and let out a heated breath.
"Otherwise, people will think Klye still has an unresolved weakness, you know? Don't you get it? This is a matter of pride! I can't just leave it alone!"
"...I have the blueprints memorized, but I don't have the cash on hand right now—and I'm also providing potions at cost for other things, so it might take some time..."
Citry was no merchant. The bulk of her assets were held as rare equipment and materials.
She had potion stock, but it wasn't something she could offload in bulk at once. Disposing of it would take time.
"...Tch. Fine, I guess I'll go hunt in some Treasure Hall while doing some training with Tea..."
Citry, for her part, wasn't opposed to recreating Akasha. Now that Not and the others were gone, Citry had to resume research, or that magnificent golem would never be developed further. That would be a tremendous shame as Akasha's creator.
But who would have thought there'd come a day when she'd be short on money...
Just then, she suddenly pictured her best friend who always came asking for favors, and Citry broke into a grin.
"Oh, right. If Klye repaid the money he borrowed—"
She murmured something she hadn't even been thinking about.
When she said "borrowed," there was no interest, no repayment deadline.
Eva had relayed to her that Klye had been told not to borrow anymore, and they'd discussed repayment, but Citry hadn't really cared about the money she'd lent.
After all, she couldn't imagine that "best friend" of hers—who earned considerable income as a hunter—would be borrowing money just to spend on frivolous things.
Originally, the reason Citry had started gathering money was to expand her options—to have more choices. As for her hobby of buying Treasure Weapons, considering that those weapons sometimes proved useful in the Mourning Specter's explorations, she had no intention of stopping.
"Oh, there they are. Citry and Liliz. Perfect timing."
At that moment, the very person she'd been thinking about happened to walk into the training grounds.
Her sister's expression blossomed into a smile. Klye approached close to Citry and spoke with an apologetic look.
"Citry, sorry, but—"